Mother Teresa Quotations | Page 2

We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love....

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.

Love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self.

What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.

We must make our homes centers of compassion and forgive endlessly.

If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole World would be clean.

God didn't call me to be successful, He called me to be faithful.

I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.

We have only today. Let us begin

Whenever you share love with others, you'll notice the peace that comes to you and to them.

Let us not use bombs and guns to overcome the world. Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile.

If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.

Like Mary, let us be full of zeal to go in haste to give Jesus to others. She was full of grace when, at the annunciation, she received Jesus. Like her, we too become full of grace every time we receive Holy Communion. It is the same Jesus whom she received and whom we receive at Mass. As soon as we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, let us go in haste to give Him to our sisters, to our poor, to the sick, to the dying, to the lepers, to the unwanted, and the unloved. By this we make Jesus present in the world today.

If you can't do great things, do little things with great love. If you can't do them with great love, do them with a little love. If you can't do them with a little love, do them anyway.

You can pray while you work. Work doesn't stop prayer and prayer doesn't stop work. It requires only that small raising of the mind to him: I love you God, I trust you, I believe in you, I need you now. Small things like that. They are wonderful prayers.

The highest form of worship is to find the least among you and treat them like Jesus.

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.

None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.

I think the world today is upside down, and is suffering so much, because there is so very little love in the homes and in family life.

Peace begins with a smile. I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish.

Be kind to each other. It is better to commit faults with gentleness than to work miracles with unkindness.

If you have a sick or lonely person at home, be there. Maybe just to hold a hand, maybe just to give a smile, that is the greatest, the most beautiful work.

My secret is simple -- I pray.

Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.

Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.

When you know how much God is in love with you then you can only live your life radiating that love.

At the heart of silence is prayer. At the heart of prayer is faith. At the heart of faith is life. At the heart of life is service.

When a poor person dies of hunger it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.

Do we know our poor people? Do we know the poor in our house, in our family? Perhaps they are not hungry for a piece of bread. Perhaps our children, husband, wife, are not hungry, or naked, or dispossessed, but are you sure there is no one there who feels unwanted, deprived of affection?

God does not create poverty; we do, because we do not share.

It is very important that children learn from their fathers and mothers how to love one another- not in the school, not from the teacher, but from you. It is very important that you share with your children the joy of that smile. There will be misunderstandings; every family has its cross, its suffering. Always be the first to forgive with a smile. Be cheerful, be happy.

We cannot condemn or judge or pass words that will hurt people. We don't know in what way God is appearing to that soul and what God is drawing that soul to; therefore, who are we to condemn anybody?

It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.

If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.

The openness of our hearts and minds can be measured by how wide we draw the circle of what we call family.

I must be willing to give whatever it takes to do good to others. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me, and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.

Following Jesus is simple, but not easy. Love until it hurts, and then love more.

Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world.

A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness.

Spread love everywhere you go; first of all in your house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

The joy of Jesus will be my strength - it will be in my heart. Every person I meet will see it in my work; my walk, my prayer - in everything.

Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.

There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.

In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.

I am only a little pencil in the hand of our Lord. He may cut or sharpen the pencil. He may write or draw whatever and whenever he wants. If the writing or drawing is good, we do not honor the pencil or the material that is used, but rather the one who used it.

Never be so busy as not to think of others.

Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary.

God does not require that we be successful only that we be faithful.

God will never, never, never let us down if we have faith and put our trust in Him. He will always look after us. So we must cleave to Jesus. Our whole life must simply be woven into Jesus.

Faith in action is love, and love in action is service. By transforming that faith into living acts of love, we put ourselves in contact with God Himself, with Jesus our Lord.

We are at Jesus' disposal. If he wants you to be sick in bed, if he wants you to proclaim His work in the street, if he wants you to clean the toilets all day, that's all right, everything is all right. We must say, "I belong to you. You can do whatever you like." And this ..is our strength, and this is the joy of the Lord.

May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.

A clean heart can see God, can speak to God, and can see the love of God in others.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give your hands to serve and your hearts to love.

Live simply so others may simply live.

Do you want to do something beautiful for God? There is a person who needs you. This is your chance.

The woman is at the heart of the home. Let us pray that we women realize the reason for our existence: to love and be loved and through this love become instruments of peace in the world.

People are unrealistic, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway.

The trees, the flowers, the plants grow in silence. The stars, the sun, the moon move in silence. Silence gives us a new perspective.

It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.

Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.

The future is not in our hands. We have no power over it. We can act only today. We have a sentence in our Constitution that says: 'We will allow the good God to make plans for the future - for yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not yet come and we have only today to make Him known, loved and served.' So we do not worry about the future.

A life not lived for others is not a life.

Life isn't about the cherished moments it is also about the hard ones. Just knowing each day that you will arise with the bright shining sun in your eyes. And end with the cool breeze upon your face as you slowly reflect the day that passed by.

Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things. It consists in accepting, with a smile, what Jesus sends us. It consists in accepting and following the will of God.

The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven, and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth

Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of Christ risen.

Keep in mind that our community is not composed of those who are already saints, but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore let us be extremely patient with each other's faults and failures.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.

Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering and the lonely right there where you are.

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.

God gives us things to share, God doesn't give us things to hold...

Prayer in action is love, and love in action is service. Try to give unconditionally whatever a person needs in the moment. The point is to do something, however small, and show you care through your actions by giving your time ... Do not worry about why problems exist in the world - just respond to people's needs ... We feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but that ocean would be less without that drop.

God speaks in the silence of the heart, and we listen. And then we speak to God from the fullness of our heart, and God listens. And this listening and this speaking is what prayer is meant to be....

Be humble like Mary so that you can be holy like Jesus

I am Albanian by birth. Now I am a citizen of India. I am also a Catholic nun. In my work, I belong to the whole world. But in my heart, I belong to Christ.

Love until it hurts. Real love is always painful and hurts: then it is real and pure.

Keep Giving Jesus to the people, not by words but by your example, by being in love with Jesus, by radiating holiness and spreading his fragrance of love everywhere you go. Just keep the joy of Jesus as your strength, be happy and at peace.

One truly must have suffered oneself to help others.

When you have nothing left but God,you have more than enough to start over again.

We need to give Christ a chance to make use of us, to be His word and His work, to share His food and His clothing in the world today. If we do not radiate the light of Christ around us, the sense of the darkness that prevails in the world will increase.

Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere - in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.

The greatest science in the world; in heaven and on earth; is love.

You must give what will cost you something. This is giving not just what you can live without, but what you can't live without, or don't want to live without, something you really like. Then your gift becomes a sacrifice, which will have value before God. This giving until it hurts - this sacrifice - is what I call love in action.

even God could do nothing for someone already full. You have to be completely empty to let Him in to do what He will.

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.

Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.

Love has a hem to her garment that reaches to the very dust. It sweeps the stains from the streets and lanes, and because it can, it must.

The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family.

God never sends us more than we can handle.

Suffering can become a means to greater love and greater generosity.

If we pray, we will believe; If we believe, we will love; If we love, we will serve.

My mother and sister must be very happy to be home with God, and I am sure their love and prayers are always with me. When I go home to God, for death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity.

Nothing makes you happier than when you really reach out in mercy to someone who is badly hurt.

Give, but give until it hurts.

I have come to realize more and more that the greatest disease and the greatest suffering is to be unwanted, unloved, uncared for, to be shunned by everybody, to be just nobody.

I belong to Jesus. He must have the right to use me without consulting me.